WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.390 align:middle line:90% 00:00:07.390 --> 00:00:09.940 align:middle line:84% From the center of the narrative section towards the end 00:00:09.940 --> 00:00:10.982 align:middle line:90% of the narrative section. 00:00:10.982 --> 00:00:15.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:15.930 --> 00:00:18.330 align:middle line:84% Or through Elanor or the Workman's Circle 00:00:18.330 --> 00:00:21.000 align:middle line:84% where she worked, addressing envelopes, 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.930 align:middle line:84% she made out, went shopping for Campbell's tomato soup, 00:00:24.930 --> 00:00:27.060 align:middle line:90% saved money Louis mailed her. 00:00:27.060 --> 00:00:30.330 align:middle line:84% Later, she found a boyfriend, and he was a doctor. 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:33.060 align:middle line:84% Dr. Isaac worked for National Maritime Union, 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.460 align:middle line:84% now Italian, bald and pudgy old doll, 00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:37.300 align:middle line:90% who was himself an orphan. 00:00:37.300 --> 00:00:38.550 align:middle line:90% But they kicked him out. 00:00:38.550 --> 00:00:40.170 align:middle line:90% Old cruelties. 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:84% Sloppier, sat around on bed or chair, 00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:46.507 align:middle line:84% in corset dreaming to herself, I'm hot, I'm getting fat. 00:00:46.507 --> 00:00:48.090 align:middle line:84% I used to have such a beautiful figure 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:49.710 align:middle line:90% before I went to the hospital. 00:00:49.710 --> 00:00:51.900 align:middle line:84% You should've seen me in Woodbine. 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:55.770 align:middle line:84% This in a furnished room around the NMU hall, 1943. 00:00:55.770 --> 00:00:59.010 align:middle line:84% Looking at naked baby pictures in the magazine, baby powder 00:00:59.010 --> 00:01:01.770 align:middle line:84% advertisements, strained lamb carrots 00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:04.470 align:middle line:84% I will think nothing but beautiful thoughts. 00:01:04.470 --> 00:01:07.830 align:middle line:84% Revolving her head around and around on her neck in window 00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:10.440 align:middle line:84% light in summertime, in hypnotized, 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:13.260 align:middle line:90% in doven-dream recall-- 00:01:13.260 --> 00:01:15.270 align:middle line:84% I touch his cheek, I touch his cheek, 00:01:15.270 --> 00:01:17.160 align:middle line:84% he touches my lips with his hand. 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:18.480 align:middle line:90% I think beautiful thoughts. 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:20.700 align:middle line:90% The baby has beautiful hands. 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:22.920 align:middle line:84% Or a no shake of her body, disgust, 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:24.960 align:middle line:84% some thought of Buchenwald, some insulin 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:27.990 align:middle line:84% passes through her head, a grimace nerve shudder 00:01:27.990 --> 00:01:31.320 align:middle line:84% involuntary, as I shudder when I piss, 00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:32.570 align:middle line:90% bad chemical in her cortex. 00:01:32.570 --> 00:01:33.570 align:middle line:90% No, don't think of that. 00:01:33.570 --> 00:01:35.310 align:middle line:90% He's a rat. 00:01:35.310 --> 00:01:36.570 align:middle line:90% Naomi. 00:01:36.570 --> 00:01:40.080 align:middle line:84% And when we die, we become an onion, a cabbage, a carrot, 00:01:40.080 --> 00:01:41.940 align:middle line:90% or a squash, a vegetable. 00:01:41.940 --> 00:01:44.100 align:middle line:84% I come downtown from Columbia and agree. 00:01:44.100 --> 00:01:47.220 align:middle line:84% She reads the Bible, thinks beautiful thoughts all day. 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:48.810 align:middle line:90% Yesterday I saw God. 00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:50.380 align:middle line:90% What did he look like? 00:01:50.380 --> 00:01:52.890 align:middle line:84% Well, in the afternoon I climbed up a ladder. 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:55.440 align:middle line:84% He has a cheap cabin in the country like Monroe, New York, 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:56.940 align:middle line:90% the chicken farms in the woods. 00:01:56.940 --> 00:01:59.720 align:middle line:84% He was a lonely old man with a white beard. 00:01:59.720 --> 00:02:00.720 align:middle line:90% I cooked supper for him. 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:02.850 align:middle line:84% I made him a nice supper-- lentil soup, vegetables, 00:02:02.850 --> 00:02:04.350 align:middle line:90% bread and butter, milk. 00:02:04.350 --> 00:02:05.850 align:middle line:84% He sat down at the table and ate. 00:02:05.850 --> 00:02:06.923 align:middle line:90% He was sad. 00:02:06.923 --> 00:02:09.090 align:middle line:84% I told him, look at all these fightings and killings 00:02:09.090 --> 00:02:09.419 align:middle line:90% down there. 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:10.169 align:middle line:90% What's the matter? 00:02:10.169 --> 00:02:12.150 align:middle line:90% Why don't you put a stop to it? 00:02:12.150 --> 00:02:13.830 align:middle line:90% I try, he said. 00:02:13.830 --> 00:02:15.480 align:middle line:90% That's all he could do. 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:16.500 align:middle line:90% He looked tired. 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:20.310 align:middle line:84% He's a bachelor so long, and he likes lentil soup. 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:24.630 align:middle line:84% Serving me meanwhile, a plate of cold fish, chopped raw cabbage 00:02:24.630 --> 00:02:28.980 align:middle line:84% dripped with tap water, smelly tomatoes, week-old health food, 00:02:28.980 --> 00:02:31.800 align:middle line:84% grated beets and carrots with leaky juice, warm, more 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:33.030 align:middle line:90% and more disconsolate food. 00:02:33.030 --> 00:02:35.250 align:middle line:84% I can't eat it for nausea sometimes. 00:02:35.250 --> 00:02:38.160 align:middle line:84% The charity of her hands stinking with Manhattan, 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:42.060 align:middle line:84% madness, desire to please me, cold, undercooked fish, 00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:43.830 align:middle line:90% pale red near the bone. 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.770 align:middle line:84% Her smells and oft naked in the room, 00:02:46.770 --> 00:02:50.190 align:middle line:84% so I stare ahead or turn a book, ignoring her. 00:02:50.190 --> 00:02:51.630 align:middle line:84% One time I thought she was trying 00:02:51.630 --> 00:02:53.760 align:middle line:84% to make me come lay here, flirting 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:57.420 align:middle line:84% to herself at the sink, lay back on a huge bed that filled most 00:02:57.420 --> 00:03:01.860 align:middle line:84% of the room, dress up around her hips, big slash of hair, 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:05.790 align:middle line:84% scars of operations, pancreas, belly wound, abortions, 00:03:05.790 --> 00:03:08.940 align:middle line:84% appendix, stitching of incisions pulling down 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:11.520 align:middle line:84% in the fat like hideous, thick zippers. 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:13.770 align:middle line:84% Ragged, long lips between her legs. 00:03:13.770 --> 00:03:16.230 align:middle line:90% What, even the smell of asshole? 00:03:16.230 --> 00:03:18.360 align:middle line:84% I was cold, later revolted a little, 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:21.990 align:middle line:84% not much, seemed perhaps a good idea to try, 00:03:21.990 --> 00:03:24.540 align:middle line:84% know the monster of the beginning wound that way. 00:03:24.540 --> 00:03:25.720 align:middle line:90% Would she care? 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:27.260 align:middle line:90% She needs a lover. 00:03:27.260 --> 00:03:31.110 align:middle line:84% Yisborach, v'yistabach, v'yispoar, v'yisroman, 00:03:31.110 --> 00:03:35.470 align:middle line:84% v'yisnaseh, v'yishador, v'yishalleh, v'yishador, sh'meh 00:03:35.470 --> 00:03:36.930 align:middle line:90% kudsho b'rich hu. 00:03:36.930 --> 00:03:38.730 align:middle line:84% And Louis re-establishing himself 00:03:38.730 --> 00:03:41.610 align:middle line:84% in Paterson grimy apartment in Negro district, 00:03:41.610 --> 00:03:44.370 align:middle line:84% living in a dark room, but found himself 00:03:44.370 --> 00:03:48.180 align:middle line:84% a girl he later married, falling in love again, 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:52.470 align:middle line:84% though sere and shy, hurt with 20 years, mad Naomi's idealism. 00:03:52.470 --> 00:03:55.120 align:middle line:84% Once I came home after a long time in New York. 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.240 align:middle line:84% He's lonely, sitting in the bedroom. 00:03:57.240 --> 00:04:00.180 align:middle line:84% He at desk chair turned round to face me, 00:04:00.180 --> 00:04:03.870 align:middle line:84% weeps, tears in red eyes under his glasses. 00:04:03.870 --> 00:04:07.890 align:middle line:84% That we'd left him, Gene gone strangely into the army, 00:04:07.890 --> 00:04:10.080 align:middle line:84% she out on her own in New York, almost 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:12.540 align:middle line:90% childish in her furnished room. 00:04:12.540 --> 00:04:14.670 align:middle line:84% So Louis walked downtown to post office 00:04:14.670 --> 00:04:19.140 align:middle line:84% to get mail, taught in high school, stayed at poetry desk, 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:23.550 align:middle line:84% forlorn, ate grief at Bickford's, all these years are 00:04:23.550 --> 00:04:25.380 align:middle line:90% gone. 00:04:25.380 --> 00:04:29.160 align:middle line:84% Eugene got out of the army, came home changed and lone, 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:31.260 align:middle line:84% cut off his nose and Jewish operation. 00:04:31.260 --> 00:04:33.600 align:middle line:84% For years, stopped girls on Broadway for cups of coffee 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:38.160 align:middle line:84% to get laid, went to NYU, serious there to study Law. 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:41.160 align:middle line:84% And Gene lived with her, ate naked fishcakes, cheap, 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:42.750 align:middle line:90% while she got crazier. 00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:46.950 align:middle line:84% He got thin or felt helpless, Naomi striking 1920 poses 00:04:46.950 --> 00:04:50.460 align:middle line:84% at the moon, half-naked in the next bed, bit his nails 00:04:50.460 --> 00:04:53.160 align:middle line:84% and studied, was the weird nurse-son. 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:55.260 align:middle line:84% Next year, he moved to a room near Columbia 00:04:55.260 --> 00:04:57.120 align:middle line:84% for she wanted to live with her children. 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.130 align:middle line:84% Listen to your mother's plea, I beg you. 00:04:59.130 --> 00:05:00.870 align:middle line:90% Louis still sending her checks. 00:05:00.870 --> 00:05:03.540 align:middle line:84% I was in bug house that year eight months. 00:05:03.540 --> 00:05:07.860 align:middle line:84% My own visions unmentioned in this here Lament, 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:09.600 align:middle line:90% but then went half mad. 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:12.720 align:middle line:84% Hitler in her room, she saw his mustache in the sink. 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:14.420 align:middle line:84% Afraid of Dr. Isaac now, suspecting 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:16.240 align:middle line:84% that he was in on the Newark plot, 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:19.690 align:middle line:84% went up the Bronx to live near Elanor's rheumatic heart. 00:05:19.690 --> 00:05:22.570 align:middle line:84% And Uncle Max never got up before noon, 00:05:22.570 --> 00:05:24.610 align:middle line:84% though Naomi at 6:00 AM was listening 00:05:24.610 --> 00:05:28.090 align:middle line:84% to the radio for spies, or searching the window cell, 00:05:28.090 --> 00:05:32.830 align:middle line:84% for in the empty lot downstairs, an old man creeps with his bag, 00:05:32.830 --> 00:05:37.180 align:middle line:84% stuffing packages of garbage in his hanging black overcoat. 00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:41.410 align:middle line:84% Max's sister Edie works, 17 years bookkeeper at Gimbels, 00:05:41.410 --> 00:05:42.970 align:middle line:84% lived downstairs in apartment house, 00:05:42.970 --> 00:05:47.080 align:middle line:84% divorced, so Edie took in Naomi on Rochambeau Avenue. 00:05:47.080 --> 00:05:50.350 align:middle line:84% Woodlawn Cemetery across the street, vast dale of graves 00:05:50.350 --> 00:05:51.790 align:middle line:90% where Poe once-- 00:05:51.790 --> 00:05:56.221 align:middle line:84% last stop on Bronx subway, lots of communists in that area. 00:05:56.221 --> 00:05:57.850 align:middle line:84% Who enrolled for painting classes 00:05:57.850 --> 00:06:00.220 align:middle line:84% at night in Bronx adult high school, 00:06:00.220 --> 00:06:03.460 align:middle line:84% walked alone under Van Cortlandt elevated line to class, 00:06:03.460 --> 00:06:05.050 align:middle line:90% paint Naomiisms. 00:06:05.050 --> 00:06:08.710 align:middle line:84% Humans sitting on the grass in some Camp No-Worry summers 00:06:08.710 --> 00:06:12.280 align:middle line:84% yore, saints with droopy faces and long, ill-fitting pants 00:06:12.280 --> 00:06:13.660 align:middle line:90% from hospitals. 00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:16.960 align:middle line:84% Brides in front of Lower East Side with short grooms, 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:19.930 align:middle line:84% lost El trains running over the Babylonian apartment 00:06:19.930 --> 00:06:21.670 align:middle line:90% rooftops in the Bronx. 00:06:21.670 --> 00:06:24.340 align:middle line:84% Sad paintings, but she expressed herself. 00:06:24.340 --> 00:06:28.630 align:middle line:84% Her mandolin gone, all strings broke in her head, she tried. 00:06:28.630 --> 00:06:33.190 align:middle line:84% Towards beauty, or some old life message? 00:06:33.190 --> 00:06:37.780 align:middle line:84% But started kicking Elanor, and Elanor had heart trouble, 00:06:37.780 --> 00:06:41.110 align:middle line:84% came upstairs and asked her about Spydom for hours, 00:06:41.110 --> 00:06:42.010 align:middle line:90% Elanor frazzled. 00:06:42.010 --> 00:06:44.320 align:middle line:84% Max away at office, accounting for cigar stores 00:06:44.320 --> 00:06:45.610 align:middle line:90% till that night. 00:06:45.610 --> 00:06:48.370 align:middle line:84% I am a great woman, a truly beautiful soul, 00:06:48.370 --> 00:06:50.020 align:middle line:90% and because of that, they-- 00:06:50.020 --> 00:06:53.560 align:middle line:84% Hitler, grandma, Hearst, the capitalists, Franco, Daily. 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:55.960 align:middle line:84% News, the 20's Mussolini, the living dead-- 00:06:55.960 --> 00:06:57.280 align:middle line:90% want to shut me up. 00:06:57.280 --> 00:06:59.260 align:middle line:84% Buba's the head of the spider network. 00:06:59.260 --> 00:07:01.420 align:middle line:84% Kicking the girls, Edie and Elanor, 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:02.800 align:middle line:84% woke Edie at midnight to tell her 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.092 align:middle line:90% she was a spy and Elanor a rat. 00:07:05.092 --> 00:07:06.800 align:middle line:84% Edie worked all day and couldn't take it. 00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:08.380 align:middle line:90% She was organizing the union. 00:07:08.380 --> 00:07:11.920 align:middle line:84% And Elanor began dying upstairs in bed. 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:14.570 align:middle line:84% The relatives call me up, she's getting worse. 00:07:14.570 --> 00:07:17.500 align:middle line:84% I was the only one left, went on the subway with Eugene 00:07:17.500 --> 00:07:19.990 align:middle line:90% to see her, ate stale fish. 00:07:19.990 --> 00:07:23.410 align:middle line:84% My sister whispers in the radio, we must be in the apartment. 00:07:23.410 --> 00:07:25.030 align:middle line:84% His mother tells him what to say. 00:07:25.030 --> 00:07:25.840 align:middle line:90% Liars! 00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:27.350 align:middle line:90% I quit for my two children. 00:07:27.350 --> 00:07:28.825 align:middle line:90% I played the mandolin. 00:07:28.825 --> 00:07:32.920 align:middle line:84% (SINGING) Last night, the nightingale woke me. 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:40.420 align:middle line:84% Last night when all was still, it sang in the golden moonlight 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:43.990 align:middle line:90% from on the wintry hill. 00:07:43.990 --> 00:07:45.250 align:middle line:90% She did. 00:07:45.250 --> 00:07:47.290 align:middle line:84% I pushed her against the door and shouted, 00:07:47.290 --> 00:07:48.550 align:middle line:90% don't kick, Elanor! 00:07:48.550 --> 00:07:51.340 align:middle line:84% She stared at me, contempt, die, disbelief. 00:07:51.340 --> 00:07:53.830 align:middle line:90% Her sons are so naive, so dumb. 00:07:53.830 --> 00:07:55.270 align:middle line:90% Elanor is the worst spy. 00:07:55.270 --> 00:07:56.680 align:middle line:90% She's taking orders. 00:07:56.680 --> 00:07:58.360 align:middle line:90% No wires in the room. 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:00.010 align:middle line:90% I'm yelling at her, last ditch. 00:08:00.010 --> 00:08:01.510 align:middle line:90% Eugene, listening on the bed. 00:08:01.510 --> 00:08:04.075 align:middle line:84% What can he do to escape that fatal mama? 00:08:04.075 --> 00:08:05.950 align:middle line:84% You've been away for a million years already. 00:08:05.950 --> 00:08:08.050 align:middle line:90% Grandma is too old to walk. 00:08:08.050 --> 00:08:10.720 align:middle line:84% We're all alive at once then, even me 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:15.070 align:middle line:84% and Gene and Naomi in one mythological cousinisque room. 00:08:15.070 --> 00:08:18.430 align:middle line:84% I, in Columbia jacket, she half-undressed, screaming 00:08:18.430 --> 00:08:20.290 align:middle line:90% at each other in the forever. 00:08:20.290 --> 00:08:23.380 align:middle line:84% I, banging against her head, which saw radio, 00:08:23.380 --> 00:08:25.990 align:middle line:84% sticks, Hitlers, the gamut of hallucinations 00:08:25.990 --> 00:08:28.160 align:middle line:90% for real, her own universe. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:31.420 align:middle line:84% No road that goes elsewhere to my own. 00:08:31.420 --> 00:08:33.549 align:middle line:90% No America, not even a world. 00:08:33.549 --> 00:08:36.669 align:middle line:84% That you go as all men, as Van Gogh, 00:08:36.669 --> 00:08:40.210 align:middle line:84% as mad Hannah, all the same to their last doom, 00:08:40.210 --> 00:08:42.820 align:middle line:90% thunders, spirits, lightning. 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:44.500 align:middle line:90% I've seen your grave! 00:08:44.500 --> 00:08:45.940 align:middle line:90% Oh, strange Naomi. 00:08:45.940 --> 00:08:48.010 align:middle line:90% My own cracked grave. 00:08:48.010 --> 00:08:49.610 align:middle line:90% Shema Israel. 00:08:49.610 --> 00:08:56.110 align:middle line:90% I am Svul Avrum, you, in death. 00:08:56.110 --> 00:08:58.450 align:middle line:84% Your last night in the darkness of the Bronx. 00:08:58.450 --> 00:09:01.570 align:middle line:84% I phone called through hospitals to secret police that 00:09:01.570 --> 00:09:04.240 align:middle line:84% came when you and I were alone, shrieking 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.450 align:middle line:84% at Elanor in my ear, who breathed hard in her own bed, 00:09:07.450 --> 00:09:09.460 align:middle line:90% got thin. 00:09:09.460 --> 00:09:11.920 align:middle line:84% Nor will I forget the door knock at your fright 00:09:11.920 --> 00:09:15.190 align:middle line:84% of spies, law advancing on my honor, 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:18.280 align:middle line:84% eternity entering the room, you running to the bathroom 00:09:18.280 --> 00:09:21.730 align:middle line:84% undressed, hiding in protest from the last heroic fate, 00:09:21.730 --> 00:09:24.220 align:middle line:90% staring at my eyes, betrayed. 00:09:24.220 --> 00:09:28.030 align:middle line:84% The final cops of madness rescuing me 00:09:28.030 --> 00:09:31.120 align:middle line:84% from your foot against the broken heart of Elanor, 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.220 align:middle line:84% your voice at Edie weary of Gimbels 00:09:33.220 --> 00:09:36.910 align:middle line:84% coming home to broken radio, and Louis needing a poor divorce. 00:09:36.910 --> 00:09:38.710 align:middle line:90% He wants to get married soon. 00:09:38.710 --> 00:09:42.970 align:middle line:84% Eugene dreaming, hiding on 125th Street, doing Negroes for money 00:09:42.970 --> 00:09:47.110 align:middle line:84% on crud furniture, defending Black girls. 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:48.340 align:middle line:90% Protest from the bathroom. 00:09:48.340 --> 00:09:51.860 align:middle line:84% Said you were sane, dressed in a cotton robe, 00:09:51.860 --> 00:09:55.420 align:middle line:84% your shoes then new, your purse and newspaper clippings 00:09:55.420 --> 00:09:59.120 align:middle line:90% know your honesty. 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:02.020 align:middle line:84% As vainly you made your lips more real with lipstick, 00:10:02.020 --> 00:10:04.780 align:middle line:84% looking in the mirror to see if the insanity was me 00:10:04.780 --> 00:10:06.730 align:middle line:90% or a carful of police. 00:10:06.730 --> 00:10:10.300 align:middle line:84% Or grandma spying at 78, your vision, 00:10:10.300 --> 00:10:12.340 align:middle line:84% her climbing over the walls of the cemetery 00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:15.040 align:middle line:84% with a political kidnaper's bag, or what 00:10:15.040 --> 00:10:17.830 align:middle line:84% you saw on the walls of the Bronx 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:20.950 align:middle line:84% in pink nightgown at midnight, staring out 00:10:20.950 --> 00:10:23.466 align:middle line:90% the window on the empty lot. 00:10:23.466 --> 00:10:28.300 align:middle line:84% Ah, Rochambeau Avenue, playground of phantoms, 00:10:28.300 --> 00:10:31.420 align:middle line:84% last apartment in the Bronx for spies, 00:10:31.420 --> 00:10:34.330 align:middle line:90% last home for Elanor or Naomi. 00:10:34.330 --> 00:10:38.660 align:middle line:84% Here these communist sisters lost their revolution. 00:10:38.660 --> 00:10:39.160 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:10:39.160 --> 00:10:40.780 align:middle line:84% Put on your clothes, Mrs. Let's go. 00:10:40.780 --> 00:10:42.160 align:middle line:90% We have the wagon downstairs. 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:44.410 align:middle line:84% You want to come with her to the station? 00:10:44.410 --> 00:10:48.940 align:middle line:84% The ride then, held Naomi's hand and held her head to my breast 00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:51.960 align:middle line:84% until I kissed her and said I did it for the best. 00:10:51.960 --> 00:10:54.340 align:middle line:84% Elanor sick and Max with heart conditions. 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:55.120 align:middle line:90% Needs-- 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:57.730 align:middle line:90% To me, why did you do this? 00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:00.400 align:middle line:84% Yes, Missus, your son will have to leave you in an hour. 00:11:00.400 --> 00:11:03.850 align:middle line:84% The ambulance came in a few hours, drove off at 4:00 00:11:03.850 --> 00:11:08.180 align:middle line:84% AM to some Bellevue in the night downtown, gone to the hospital 00:11:08.180 --> 00:11:09.100 align:middle line:90% forever. 00:11:09.100 --> 00:11:10.480 align:middle line:90% I saw her led away. 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:12.598 align:middle line:90% She waved, tears in eyes. 00:11:12.598 --> 00:11:15.226 align:middle line:90% 00:11:15.226 --> 00:11:18.850 align:middle line:84% Two years after a trip to Mexico, 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:21.010 align:middle line:84% bleak in the flat plane near Brentwood, 00:11:21.010 --> 00:11:22.780 align:middle line:90% scrub brush and grass-- 00:11:22.780 --> 00:11:25.720 align:middle line:84% scrub brush and grass around the unused RR train 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:31.090 align:middle line:84% tracks to the crazyhouse, new brick 20-storey building, 00:11:31.090 --> 00:11:33.790 align:middle line:84% lost on the vast lawns of madtown on Long 00:11:33.790 --> 00:11:37.600 align:middle line:90% Island, huge cities of the moon. 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:40.210 align:middle line:84% Asylum spreads out giant wings above the path 00:11:40.210 --> 00:11:43.270 align:middle line:84% to the minute black hole, the door. 00:11:43.270 --> 00:11:45.010 align:middle line:90% I went in, smelt funny. 00:11:45.010 --> 00:11:48.850 align:middle line:84% The halls again, up elevator, to a glass door on woman's ward 00:11:48.850 --> 00:11:49.870 align:middle line:90% to Naomi. 00:11:49.870 --> 00:11:53.140 align:middle line:84% Two nurses, buxom white, they led her out. 00:11:53.140 --> 00:11:54.160 align:middle line:90% Naomi stared. 00:11:54.160 --> 00:11:57.010 align:middle line:84% And I gasped, she'd had a stroke. 00:11:57.010 --> 00:12:01.180 align:middle line:84% Too thin, shrunk on her bones, age comes to Naomi, 00:12:01.180 --> 00:12:05.230 align:middle line:84% now broken into white hair, loose dress on her skeleton, 00:12:05.230 --> 00:12:08.980 align:middle line:84% face sunk, old, withered, cheek of crone, 00:12:08.980 --> 00:12:12.580 align:middle line:84% one hand stiff, heaviness of forties and menopause 00:12:12.580 --> 00:12:16.660 align:middle line:84% reduced by one heart stroke, lame now, wrinkles, 00:12:16.660 --> 00:12:21.610 align:middle line:84% a scar on her head, lobotomy, ruined, the hand dipping 00:12:21.610 --> 00:12:24.790 align:middle line:90% downwards towards death. 00:12:24.790 --> 00:12:32.300 align:middle line:84% Oh, Russian faced, woman on the grass, your long black hair 00:12:32.300 --> 00:12:34.640 align:middle line:90% is crowned with flowers. 00:12:34.640 --> 00:12:37.310 align:middle line:90% The mandolin is on your knees. 00:12:37.310 --> 00:12:40.430 align:middle line:84% Communist beauty, sit here married 00:12:40.430 --> 00:12:46.220 align:middle line:84% in the summer among daisies, promised happiness at hand. 00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:50.450 align:middle line:84% Holy Mother, now you smile on your love. 00:12:50.450 --> 00:12:52.820 align:middle line:90% Your world is born anew. 00:12:52.820 --> 00:12:57.560 align:middle line:84% Children run naked in the field spotted with dandelions. 00:12:57.560 --> 00:13:00.590 align:middle line:84% They eat in the plum three grove at the end of the meadow 00:13:00.590 --> 00:13:03.630 align:middle line:84% and find a cabin where a white-haired Negro teaches 00:13:03.630 --> 00:13:06.230 align:middle line:90% the mystery of his rain barrel. 00:13:06.230 --> 00:13:08.990 align:middle line:84% Blessed daughter, come to America. 00:13:08.990 --> 00:13:11.120 align:middle line:84% I'd love to hear your voice again, 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.670 align:middle line:84% remembering your mother's music in the song 00:13:13.670 --> 00:13:16.550 align:middle line:90% of the natural front. 00:13:16.550 --> 00:13:20.390 align:middle line:84% Oh, glorious music that bore me from the womb, 00:13:20.390 --> 00:13:23.330 align:middle line:84% gave suck first mystic life and taught me 00:13:23.330 --> 00:13:26.840 align:middle line:84% talk and music from whose pained heads I first 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:30.170 align:middle line:84% took vision, tortured and beaten in the skull. 00:13:30.170 --> 00:13:33.890 align:middle line:84% What made hallucinations of the damned that drive me out 00:13:33.890 --> 00:13:38.180 align:middle line:84% of my own skull to seek eternity till I find peace 00:13:38.180 --> 00:13:44.030 align:middle line:84% for the, oh poetry, and for all humankind, call on the origin. 00:13:44.030 --> 00:13:46.560 align:middle line:84% Death which is the mother of the universe! 00:13:46.560 --> 00:13:50.360 align:middle line:84% Now wear your nakedness forever, white flowers 00:13:50.360 --> 00:13:52.640 align:middle line:84% in your hair, your marriage sealed 00:13:52.640 --> 00:13:56.960 align:middle line:84% behind the sky, no revolution might destroy that maidenhood. 00:13:56.960 --> 00:14:00.470 align:middle line:84% Oh, beautiful Garbo of my karma, all 00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:03.530 align:middle line:84% photographs from 1920 in Camp Nicht-Gedeiget 00:14:03.530 --> 00:14:07.370 align:middle line:84% here unchanged, with all the teachers from Newark, 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:11.420 align:middle line:84% nor Elanor begun, nor Max await his specter, 00:14:11.420 --> 00:14:14.240 align:middle line:84% nor Louis retire from this high school. 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:17.540 align:middle line:90% 00:14:17.540 --> 00:14:21.190 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:21.190 --> 00:14:30.087 align:middle line:90%